First Solar EV to market?

[seth feldman]

Taking bets on whether Aptera or Lightyear one hits the market first.

I’m betting all of my internet glory on the lightyear one, just so Steve, and Chris are extra motivated to prove me wrong….

• This discussion was modified 3 months, 2 weeks ago by  bbelcamino.

[kerbe2705]

I’d rather they get it right than get it first…

[Curtis Cibinel]

Realistically Lightyear One will likely ship first but it is also $170,000 USD.

Sono is a more direct solar competitor as it is similar on price but is a small urban family EV.

Daymak Spiritus is another interesting competitor to watch but the company seems a little snakeoil with some of their products; for a good laugh check out the Skyrider.

[seth feldman]

I’m hoping aptera gets multiple manufacturing plants up and running so they have a good chance of staying in business. I hope they don’t let perfection stop them putting excellent cars out before the market is overcrowded. In about 3 years toyota and other big manufacturers will likely have massive EV production to compete with.

I think the $175k lightyear price also includes company investment for the early adopters. It’s supposed to start at $35k after the first editions sell out (we’ll see). From what I saw it wasn’t as efficient around the track as they were predicting though.

The sono looked like an adequate city vehicle with a more practical albeit ugly form factor.

I don’t think the spiritus has solar? It is my favorite aesthetically, but seems to be more toy with short range/no storage, and has silly crypto mining gimmick

[Curtis Cibinel]

Spiritus is a 3 wheel relatively efficient vehicle. It’s solar is purely for secondary systems (including crypto mining which makes no sense)

[Joshua Rosen]

The $35K Lightyear is a different product, probably years away. I don’t see how a $170K car is viable. That’s EQS, Taycan or Lucid Air money, those are luxury cars. The seats in the EQS will even give you a happy ending.

[John Malcom]

I believe the $35,000 Lightyear product is a separate vehicle. There will be sometime between the $175,000 release and the 35K version just as with Aptera the four wheel version will follow the Roadster paradigm production starting this year.

It really doesn’t matter which vehicle wins the horse race. The Apter is a far better value, and based on the value proposition will win in the marketplace over any version of the Lightyear. Aptera has stated and restated their commitment to quality in the Aptera. Both engineering and management know that anything less would contribute rejection in the marketplace

[John Malcom]

A more detailed assessment if the Light year one. My favorite is the price per battery mile if you get an Aptera with full solar compared to the Light Year 1. Aptera $82/battery mile (400 mi with full solar) , Light year 1 $388/battery mile. I think “Emperor’s new clothes” if you buy a Light Year 1

Download the table if you want to see more.

Light-Year.docx 16 KB Word Document — Click to view

• Copy Download Link

[Henry Kitt]

I have a feeling the Fisker Pear will be Aptera’s biggest competition, and will have about the same or more solar range as the Sono Sion. It’s not due out until late next year though, and no actual specs released yet, top secret, but expects to start production at 250k units a year.

The Lightyear One doesn’t really even matter so Aptera should release the first solar car that anyone will actually want to buy either way, and should be a range/efficiency leader for the foreseeable future.

• This reply was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by  Henry Kitt.

[Joshua Rosen]

I wouldn’t count on anything from Fisker, they have a long track record of delivering nothing. They’ve gotten a little better lately by pivoting to selling vehicles designed an built by others, the Ocean is from Magna using a Magna platform. Fisker is at best a styling house, they can’t deliver any breakthrough technologies because they don’t do technology.

[Henry Kitt]

That’s not true. Fisker Karma was delivered, but their battery supplier went under so that hurt them. Fisker Emotion has been delayed until they can mass produce it with solid state batteries and the Ocean and Pear will be sold in the interim. They’ll use a modified version of a Magna platform for the Ocean but Fisker has a bunch of patents on the design etc for both cars. The Pear will be built by Foxconn. These are absolute certainties at this point. It’s the same business model as Apple and AMD.

Hopefully Aptera can scale at a solid rate without using a contract manufacturer but otherwise it’s definitely worth considering to outsource some of the manufacturing as well.

[Curtis Cibinel]

Part of Aptera’s engineering is its simplicity of assembly. This is sometimes called micro factories and they are ~100,000 sq ft. It will require very few pieces of expensive robots and instead use slightly more human labour. This means regional jobs anywhere with a factory. I hope we have a second factory start setup within 1-2 years but its a guess how long it will take to refine production processes at the first before they start making a second. Manufacturing far closer to the customer will reduce costs. Long term I hope to see Aptera with 50+ factories around the world in major cities each making units.

[Rob Smart]

Apparently Elio Motors has also resurfaced with a electric offering. Without solar and also super shady practices in the past.

[Gabriel Kemeny]

It’s been less than a week since Sono Motors was announcing that it reached 20,000 reservations for its Sion, which the carmaker claims has the potential to become the world’s first SEV (Solar Electric Vehicle) for the masses. The average down-payment for the vehicle is around $2,000 net and the expected net sales price point of the car is approximately $25,100. Now the number of reservations for it has increased even more, with FINN just agreeing to buy a total of 12,600 units.

Sono Motors and FINN recently signed the Letter of Intent, with the goal of this partnership being to provide cars for FINN to grow its fleet of sustainable vehicles. The Munich-based car subscription platform operates both in Germany and the United States and 30 percent of its entire fleet already consists of electric cars. The 12,600 solar cars ordered from Sono Motors will only be used for the company’s service in Germany.

Sono Motors Lands Another Order for Its Sion Solar Vehicle, Will Sell 12,600 Units to FINN – autoevolution

[Mark Salyzyn]

IMHO the race is not for Aptera.

Sunmobile (1955 show demo, first, but not viable)

Hyundai Sonata (2021)

Lightyear-0 (2022)

Aptera ‘Roadster’ (2023)

Lightyear ‘$35k’ (2025)

Sono Sion (2025)

Lightyear-0 is $170, so it may be considered too fringe to be considered a volume entrant.

Since 2 seaters represent 1.6% of the automobile market, and 3 wheelers represent <0.1% of the market, the Aptera ‘Roadster’ is also too fringe to be considered a volume entrant.

2025 is the year of solar cars, hope Aptera has a viable mass production entrant then in their ‘crawl, walk, run’ race and that they are not too distracted by the ‘Roadster’ by then.

I have never seen a hyper successful entrepreneur use the ‘crawl, walk, run’ strategy, all of the best industrialists visualized full production and acted directly as if it happened already as they lead the way. Engineers are far to cautious, as a breed, in such matters.

[Eric Caldwell]

One unspoken advantage that Aptera is expected to have over the Sono Sion and the Lightyear 2 is the lack of a battery subscription model. The more I see companies like Vinfast saying “We’ll give you a ‘reasonable’ entry price, but you’ll be paying for the battery forever” the more I envision a consumer pushback toward right-to-repair and a “buy it right, buy it once” philosophy.